Every Linux distro will work with your hardware, aside from edge case components in certain situations. There is no difference in distros for hardware compatibility, unless you’re thinking of running a very old versions of something. Anything will work.

There is also no major difference between distros for gaming performance. The only difference in “gaming” distros is that they have certain software preselected and installed. You can just do this yourself anyway.

I currently suggest Fedora for beginners because it’s dead simple. The big difference between any distro is going to be the default Desktop Environment, and you can choose whatever you want after you install anyway.

If you like Windows’ UI, give KDE a shot. If you want something more like MacOS, go for Gnome. Either work great.

If you want to try multiple, download some LiveUSB images, start em up and poke around a bit. If you change your mind after install, you can just install a different DE and switch over without needing to reinstall the entire OS.

Nvidia is the problematic one. But in most cases that just means that you have to install extra drivers after installation. In most distributions that just means installing an extra package and rebooting. Don’t go to the nvidia website for that.

If you are already familiar with a Linux distribution use that. If you have a friend who uses Linux use the same thing they do. Or just use Mint.

You can change the way your system looks and works by choosing a different desktop environment. Many distributions just have one default but you can always change that later on. The big ones are Gnome which is a bit more like Mac OSX and KDE which is more Windows like. KDE also offers much more customisability.

You’ve already gotten several good replies, and I’ll add a couple more details that might be related to your use case:

Bazzite is a “gaming distro” with built-in Steam integrations. It’s great if all you do on the machine is game and do gaming-related things, like streaming. It’s what I use on my dedicated gaming PC, under my TV. Things mostly Just Work, and I’ve only had to mess with configuration files when setting up things like wake-on-USB and my custom Network shares.

Gaming and streaming will work on basically any distro. And if you pick a distro based on Debian or Fedora, it should be stable and fairly easy to get used to.

Don’t wipe out Windows yet. Install Linux on a separate partition, or even better a separate drive. That way, you can switch off between them until you’re fully used to Linux. Let yourself transition over a few months. That way, if you struggle to do something in Linux, you can switch back over to Windows and get it done.

Some folks try to change all at once, then get frustrated if they hit a stumbling block. It’s safer to keep Windows as a backup, so you don’t feel trapped if something goes wrong.

1: You’re not yet ready for Arch and Arch derivatives (CachyOS, EndeavorOS, etc.)

2: Fedora KDE

3: Fedora KDE

4: Fedora KDE

Linux Mint is good, but it, like Ubuntu and Debian, are “vintage” linuxes that are very behind on software versions. Things are moving very fast right now with a lot of back end linux stuff changing rapidly to support more people and programs coming off Windows. Fedora is the best “middle ground” in that it’s not Arch bleeding edge, but it is also not Debian stable “vintage”.

You do need to install RPM Fusion for Fedora to go from nvidia open source driver to nvidia proprietary driver, though.

KDE is a fully featured desktop that will give you familiarity with Windows-like layouts. Some other desktops, like GNOME, tend to reinvent the wheel and have very different desktop workflows. You’ll have to boot the live discs / sticks and poke around to understand what I mean.

To make a boot disc, use an 8GB+ usb stick and rufus - rufus.ie

Fedora Kinoite or Bazzite (which is based on Fedora Kinoite).

Both are “immutable” which all you need to know means they are essentially impossible to meaningfully break.

Both use the KDE interface which is very similar to Windows and very tweak-able.

They’re very similar, but Bazzite is the one to go with if you do a lot of gaming. It’s basically the Steam Deck OS plus a little more. I’ve tested Bazzite with an Nvidia card and had no issues whatsoever and performance was nearly identical to what I was getting with Windows.

I started with a Steam Deck. Now I’m running PopOS on my Framework 13 and Bazzite on a home theatre PC. I’ve had far fewer issues with them than any flavor of Windows.

I can’t go back. I won’t.

Start with Linux Mint. It’s similar in vibe to older Windows, (think Windows 7/10)

You can use the GUI for everything, even major version upgrades, driver installations, and Kernel changes.

It comes with everything you need to get started, and their software portal is easy to use and get stuff from, including gaming staples like Steam, OBS Studio, etc.

Any and all advice anyone gives you is going to be heavily weighted by their personal experiences, which is not bad, but also may not be your experience. Truly the best thing to do, if you are willing, is to try a bunch.

Download several different distributions. Get as many USB sticks as you reasonably can. Flash a different distro to each drive. Boot to them one at a time, and try them out. See what you like about one versus another. Hopefully you find one that just “clicks” for you, and then you actually install it to the computer. From there, if everything works, great - enjoy your computer. However, if you immediately run into problems, just go install your number 2 favorite and see if those problems exist there. There’s a reasonable chance they won’t.

Good places to start:

• Mint
• Debian
• PopOS
• Fedora (check out their “spins”, there are a lot of flavors of Fedora)
• Bazzite
• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
• Cachy
• Endeavor
• Garuda

(There is a thing called Ventoy which kinda lets you use several distros from one usb stick, but I’ve also seen several distro’s instructions warn against using it so maybe it isn’t the best choice for a new convert). Also, obligatory stay away from Manjaro. It isn’t worth it as a new convert…

My feeling is that might be a lack of choice here. So, just my 0.00002 cents, to supply you with a few more options:

• Just use Debian. It is boring but it will work.
• Or, Tumleweed has been named. But it is not maximally stable. Better, use Tumbleweed in a VM on top of OpenSuSE leap. That way, you have both superb stability and a very current system.
• You could also sell your nvidia card (let’s be honest, it probavly will only bring you grief), and get a AMD radeon which is fully supported by a libre kernel. Then, you can install Guix on it. Then you have a truly reproducible, very lean and organized system.
• If dropping the nvidia card sounds too extreme for you, you can also install Debian, and install Guix as a package manager on top of it. That will work because the Debian kernel supports the hardware. But don’t forget that NVidia is a nuisance, often. Well, you might have luck.
• Let’s say you are short on money and you don’t want a system that consumes too much RAM, since that has gotten expensive, man. So, you could get Debian with XFce as Desktop environment. Or, even leaner, you could get ICeWM.
• Or in case you want a very fast Lisp-based window manager with very fast, manual tiling, try StumpWM, say, on Debian.
• Or, if you want an automatic tiling WM, give i3wm or sway a try. Or GNOME with paperWM extension.
• GNOME would also run on Ubuntu, or on Mint. Actually, it is all Debian under the hood, mostly. Just easier to install.
• Or you want a privacy-focused Distro. Try Trisquel.
• Or, you just want to keep it simple, perhaps. In that case, I’d recommend Debian. Or, perhaps for the start, Debian-derived distro that is easy to install. There are plenty.
• But when you want to have it even simpler, get rid of the nvidia card. This really simplifies things.